Among Stars and Planets
by FlowerOwl
Summary: It was supposed to be an easy mission. Steal the diamonds and get out alive, nothing Zelda had not done already. A chance encounter and Zelda's inability to leave another person behind complicated the task.


Zelda crept through the jungle of wires, struggling slightly to balance the task of keeping her blaster up in front of her, alert and ready to jump into a fighting position at a moment's notice with keeping one hand free to push pieces of rubble out of her way as she advanced through the corridor formed among the general chaos around her.

While making sure not to make a sound, not accidentally letting the group in front of her know that she was there, just a few metres away, she paused and looked down at her trusty, old blaster. It was ancient, but that was also the only part of the tirade her father had directed towards both the weapon and Zelda herself when she had brought it home in the first place that Zelda would ever agree with. And when it came to weapons, Zelda would pick an older version she could depend on over something new that might end up malfunctioning when she needed it the most.

And, as it had turned out, you did end up in a lot of situations where you found yourself happy that your blaster did not require years of prior knowledge to operate when you were the daughter of the king of Hyrule. Yes, Zelda had run away the moment she got the chance, slipping out of her bedroom window with nothing but a blaster and enough money to last for a month to disappear into the depths of space, hidden away on an unauthorised ship, but, generally, criminals looking for a chance to demand ransom from one of the richest men on the planet did not care too much about the personal relationships between the members of a family. As long as the connection was there, it meant an opportunity to earn money quickly.

It had not taken long before Zelda grew used to the weight of the blaster in her hand. Even when she was not using it to deter people from coming to close it was still useful for her job—if her profession could even be described as a 'job'—as it typically ended up entailing either smuggling or theft.

Currently, it was a case of the later.

The group in front of her—her current employer had told her that all three of them were smugglers from Labrynna—was carrying what she had to steal: diamonds. And not any diamonds, but diamonds harvested from the depth of Lorule. Given how dangerous it was to get the diamonds in the first place, it was rare that people got theirs the legal way, since it meant paying an incredibly high fee to the miners who risked their lives to get their hands on the precious stones. No, rather, people would steal the diamonds from one another.

Perhaps Zelda would have felt bad about what she was about to do, if it wasn't for how she knew that the Labrynnans in front of her had most likely stolen their cargo from others as well. Given how fancy the ship that was parked right next to them was, they had to be quite good as what they were doing, so surely, they would not starve just because they lost this one shipment.

Her blaster was ready to shot, it felt comfortable in her grip, and Zelda was ready to complete the task and get her reward before she could disappear into anonymity for a while again, living off the money her mission would earn her until it was time to take on another job.

It was then that Zelda noticed a movement to her right. There was no sound, and had it not been for how Zelda was already on high alert she knew that she would not have been able to spot in, but she was sure that she saw a flash of something orange, something that could not be explained by the storm that was raging just a few metres above the destroyed roof of the abandoned factory that the group of smugglers had seemingly chosen to use as their hideout. In fact, Zelda was now so sure that she was not the only person spying on the smugglers that she took her eyes of them for a moment to instead survey her surroundings once more.

She had to give it to the other person. They were good. Zelda had of course taken time to ensure that she was the only person other than the Labrynnans in the building when she had entered it in the first place, so whoever the other person was, they had somehow remained undetected, something that did actually impress Zelda. She might not be the fastest or most athletic runaway looking for a job, but she knew that she was good at picking up on the little details, things that were out of place—an ability she had picked up during what now felt like her former life when she had spent hours going over how to spot the signs of someone lying or hiding something.

But despite their skill, they could not remain hidden from Zelda, not when she was suspicious and knew to look for someone.

The person was lying on their stomach only a few metres away from Zelda. Hidden behind the mess of columns, wires, plastic, and general garbage, Zelda was fairly certain that the other person had not seen her—or at least they did not move in response to Zelda's gaze—something she was thankful for. However, it also meant that Zelda could not see anything that might help her identify the other person later. The only thing she could be sure of was the fact that the other person's hair was orange, the colour even brighter in the darkness that surrounded them. Zelda assumed that was what she had seen moments before and caught herself wondering why someone who quite obviously knew how to hide themselves had not thought to dye their hair a softer colour. A hue so bright that it might as well have been luminous was sure to bring them nothing but trouble, as it meant a constant risk of someone noticing them.

No matter what had been the thing to give the other person away, it didn't matter, so Zelda forced herself to look away and turn her attention back to the task at hand. What mattered was that Zelda had spent so much time on tracking down the smugglers and that she needed the money she could get for the diamonds to pay the rent for her tony apartment back on Koholint. She was not sure what the other person was doing in the building, but she was not ready to risk that they were also after the diamonds.

She crept forward—just a few metres—keeping her eyes on the person next to her, carefully watching for any signs of them noticing her. And then it happened.

The other person suddenly turned their head to the side and Zelda found herself starring directly into their eyes. They were red, cold and intelligent, the colour several shades darker than the person's hair, almost the same shade as the blood running through Zelda's veins as her heart beat so loudly against her ribcage it should be impossible for the other person not to hear it.

It seemed that the mere sight of Zelda was enough to make the other person rethink their plan—whatever it had been—and they began to quickly crawl backwards to get away.

Zelda had a moment of proudness. She was seemingly intimidating enough that just seeing her was enough to make others flee. But her happiness was short-lived.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw how the other person hit a pile of junk with their left foot, causing the entire pile to wobble dangerously, tipping in over the figure underneath. Zelda felt her heart skip a beat. No, not now, her mission could not be destroyed by someone else, if it had been Zelda's fault, then at least she would have known that there was nothing she could have done.

The pile stopped moving, seemingly defying gravity, and for a second, Zelda thought that she might be lucky enough that it would stay that way.

But of course that was not the case. A box was the first thing to fall. It fell from the top of the pile, and Zelda felt her stomach mimic its way down to the floor. There was a loud crash as the box made impact with the ground and then the rest of the pile came down as well. The hushed conversation that had been going on between the smugglers came to an abrupt halt as they all turned to look in the direction of the sound.

Zelda turned her head as well, but she did not look at the mess of destroyed boxes and tangled wires. Instead, she tried to find the spot the characteristic mess of orange hair among the piles of debris. After a few seconds of scanning her surroundings, looking for even a lash of a strand of orange hair, Zelda spotted the person. It seemed that the crash had made them freeze in place, not daring to move now that the smugglers were suspicious of unwanted people in the building.

Knowing that if the group decided to go and investigate the sound, they would surely find her unwanted fellow spy, Zelda held her breath and made sure not to make a sound. She was not sure what she would do if the smugglers were to begin to make their way over to the other person. To be honest, Zelda was not even sure why she cared at all. If they decided to go after the other spy, there was a chance that it would create enough confusion to allow Zelda to swoop in and steal the diamonds while the smugglers were going after the other person. But something inside her told her that it was not right to leave her unwanted colleague behind to fend for themselves.

She waited a few seconds, waiting to see what the group would do. Inside, she prayed to whatever goddess was out there that the group would leave. But of course that was not the case, and the Labrynnans began to make their way over to where the other person was.

Zelda looked over at the spy once more. They had not moved at all, and now, Zelda could see that it was not only because they had frozen with fear, no, they had gotten their left leg stuck under some of the junk that must have landed on top of it when the pile had fallen. Even from where she was situated, she could see that the other person was fighting to supress the urge to let out a scream.

She could not leave them. Not in that condition

Had she not been careful not to make a sound, Zelda would perhaps have sighed. There was a certain stereotype on Koholint—on all planets in the galaxy, really—that the runaway children, who were typically easy to spot by their thin, underfed frames and the tired look in their eyes, did not have any morals, and that they would not think twice about turning in their friends to the Galactic Police to return them to their families if it meant that they could get a reward in return. That was true to an extent; with most of them constantly worrying about where their next meal would come from, there was a lot of competition for the few jobs that the crime rings would offer to children. But once a friendship was formed between two runaway children, two children who could truly understand each other, they were willing to do anything for each other. Zelda knew that first-hand. The only reason she knew about the diamond-job in the first place was because Link had told her about it after he had willingly given up the job and the money he could have earned from it to instead recommend her.

And now it seemed that just being in the same place and possibly having the same goal as the other spy had made Zelda subconsciously start feeling personally responsible for them, acting just like they had met under the same circumstances as when she and Link had first met—in an alley on the lower levels of Koholint, both of them on the run from the police.

Sometimes she wished that she was able to just ignore the issues that did not affect her, she really did. But it seemed that there was no way she could convince herself to leave now and save herself.

So Zelda looked around her and, upon realising that the little piece of metal next to her right hand had the perfect size for her plan, reached out to grab the tiny piece of garbage. She tried to calculate her throw, but she knew that she did not have the time nor did she have the resources to figure out the answer right in that moment, so she just made sure to throw it as far away from herself as she could.

For once, she was lucky. The piece of metal ended up hitting one of the abandoned machines, and the sound of metal against metal was sudden and jarring in the otherwise quiet room.

The group in front of her stopped dead in their tracks and turned to look in the direction of the new sound.

Zelda listened in as they began to discuss again. She did not speak Labrynnan, at least not fluently, but as a runaway on Koholint she had of course picked up a few words of the most popular languages through befriending the other children and having to talk with the different crime rings, each of which usually spoke a different language. And she did know enough Labrynnan to make out the overall meaning of the conversation that was taking place in front of her.

The first person seemed determined for them to go and investigate both sounds. Zelda was silent and just hoped that they would start with the sound she had created. That way, she might just have enough time to go and help her fellow spy with getting their leg free so that they could flee and Zelda could continue her quest for the diamonds.

Luckily, both of the other smugglers seemed to think it was not worth it. Zelda could feel a smile growing on her face as she heard how they were slowly convincing the first person the drop the issue. That was, she was happy until she heard them agree just to leave the area immediately.

She heard how they picked up the boxes of diamonds and loaded them onto their ship. Fighting to come up with a plan, Zelda felt her anger towards the other spy grow again. She could jump up and begin to shot with her blaster, but she knew that she would not stand a chance against the three people if they were armed as well. Besides, she knew that it was right to outright murder other people given how so many of them were only in the business because they had no other choice. So Zelda had to just wait there while the smugglers went into the ship as well.

The air grew warm and Zelda felt droplets of sweat begin to trickle down her back as the ship got ready to take off. She knew that it meant that the motors were on. No matter what, she would not be able to get the diamonds now, even if she got back to her own ship in an instant, she would never be able to catch up with the better ship. She had lost the job.

The ship took off, flying through the hole in the roof. Seconds later, it was gone, having left the planet.

Zelda turned towards the spot where she knew the other person was, given how they could not possibly have figured out how to get their leg out from under the garbage in such a short span of time. And she was right, they were still there.

Slowly, while making sure to keep her blaster up in front of her, both to show the other person where it was, but also to make sure that they could see that she was armed, Zelda made her way over to them.

As she got closer, she could see that the other person was wearing a black leather jacket. There was a pin placed on the right side of the zipper which proclaimed that this person was under the protection of the Galactic Police.

A wave of cold fear washed over her, as Zelda fought to remember that there was no way this person was fit enough to win a fight against her while trapped underneath the rubble. Zelda had the blaster, she knew what to do, and there was no way she would get sent back home to her father after everything she had done to ensure her freedom. This person was most likely just a private detective, hired by the police to track down the smugglers. There was no reason for them to suspect her of anything other than another regular crime.

The person looked up when Zelda was right in front of them and—seemingly realising that if Zelda wanted to harm them, there was very little that they could do about it— simply looked down at the floor again. Zelda did not bother to tell them that she was there to help, and just made her way around them.

There was quite a large piece of metal keeping their left leg trapped. Given the shape of it, Zelda assumed that it was an old piece of a machine, looking like a large stick with a bigger cube fastened at the end. The cube appeared to be the heaviest part of the entire thing, but Zelda could see how it had also saved the detective's leg as it seemed that the cube had hit the floor before the rest of the metallic garbage had had the chance hit the person's leg, meaning that they did not get the entire weight of the metal onto their leg.

Moving it did take quite a while, with Zelda trying to disguise how difficult it was for her to move it out of the way. If there was one thing she had learnt from her time as a homeless child on Koholint, it was that you could never allow yourself the luxury of looking weak.

Finally, she got the metal stick moved away from the detective.

It seemed that the sudden disappearance of the weight from the metal on their leg surprised the detective, for they looked up at Zelda, a mix of surprise, joy, and wariness on their face.

"Why did you do that?" they asked. They had an accent that Zelda could not quite place. Instinctively, she would have guessed that it was Standard Twilit Hylian, but it could also be Southern Hyrulean.

Trying not to think about the accent, Zelda shrugged and tried to seem blasé about it all. "If you died, I would not get the chance to yell at you for ruining everything for me by making that pile of garbage fall over. Did you know how long it took me to track down their position?"

The other person let out a chuckle. Zelda had to applaud their courage, if she had been lying on the ground with another person carrying a blaster standing over her, telling her that they blamed her for ruining their chance to steal diamonds, she would not have been that calm.

"I'm sorry about that. If it helps, the sound also caused me to lose track of the smugglers. And I had been working on tracking them down for several weeks now."

"You are working for the Galactic Police, aren't you?" Zelda nodded towards the badge.

"Yup," the other nodded, "I'm Midna, female, detective hired to figure out the pattern of those smugglers you just saw." she paused, looking up at Zelda, with a gaze so intense that Zelda felt like she could see right into her soul. "And let me guess, you are working for one of the crime rings… let me guess, runaway, lives on Koholint, tried to earn money to make some dream come true."

"How did you know that?" Zelda blurted out before she remembered that she could not afford someone she had just met to know that much about her.

But Midna just laughed. "Because that describes practically all of the scrawny criminals I have ever met. Although… they have never tried to save me before."

"Please, I didn't do it to save you; I just knew that once you had alerted them, I would not get another chance to steal the stones. So it was smarter to just make them leave immediately so that I would not have to waste any more time on this planet. Besides, don't think that this means that I am not angry at you, you just ruined it for me, where do you think I will get money for food from now, hmm?"

"I already said that I am sorry about that." Midna got up from the floor, using both of her hands to push herself up into a standing position. Zelda could see how she made sure not to place any weight in her left leg. "But in return, I will promise not to hand you over to the Galactic Police."

"Don't even try that," Zelda said, trying her best to seem more intimidating than she felt. "I know that your leg is injured and I am the only one of us currently armed. You would not stand a chance against me."

Midna just looked at her for a moment before smirking at her. "Maybe you are right. Okay then, what about this: I take you out for dinner every day for the next month. That ought to be able to compensate for whatever payment you would have received for giving those diamonds over to your boss, wouldn't it?"

"Define what you mean by 'dinner'."

"A nice meal on a restaurant. I will make sure to pay for everything you could possibly want to order." There was a little pause before Midna winked at her and continued. "And if you would prefer the dinners to include candlelight, red wine, and a quartet playing music, I can also do that."

Zelda almost lost her grip on her blaster. She was used to seeing other people flirt and being quite forward both during her time on Hyrule and on Koholint, but she had never experienced it herself. That being said, there was something about Midna's bravery that she could not help but admire, and given how she would not be the one to pay for the candles, Zelda could not see any reason to decline the offer.

"I accept the invitation."

"Great!" Midna did not falter as she moved closer to her, digging something out of her right pocket. Zelda didn't realise that it was a pen until Midna had grabbed a scrap of loose paper from the floor, scribbling something onto it before she handed it to Zelda. "Contact this number once you have found your way back to Koholint, then I will make sure to make preparations so that you are going to have the best month of your life."

With that, Midna turned around, and began to make her way back out of the factory.

Had it not been for the way Midna limped slightly, Zelda would not have believed that she had just spent several minutes trapped under the rubble, and had it not been for the digits on the paper she clutched tightly in her hand, Zelda would not have allowed herself to believe what had just happened.

But it had, and the numbers seemed to almost burn into her hand as she shoved the piece of paper into her pocket.

She could not wait to get back home to Koholint.


End file.
